OX Seven Newsletter #9

We are in a unique position in the sense we speak to recruitment consultants every single day. It gives us access to huge amounts of anecdotal, qualitative data.?Which we love.

Something extremely common we are seeing at the moment is the vast amount of people who went to internal roles on higher bases, who now want to go back to agency so they can earn comms again. There has been a very public call to arms for ex internal/TA who have been laid off or let go.

We are seeing exceptionally high levels of reticence/resistance from agency decision makers on taking the internal/TA profile back in to their agency - hence the huge amount of green banners on the LinkedIn profile pictures of this group.?It's a shame, as they're quite often exceptional recruiters, despite having a bias which leans slightly more to delivery than BD - which in this market, makes sense.

Quite often, the best and most useful insights we get are from the consultants who are not actually looking and who are happy where they are. We always ask what is keeping you happy at the moment? The most obvious answer is not always salary/earning ability!?

Here is some real life, anecdotal answers we’ve had in the last month:?

Flexibility on where they work - the vast majority of consultants we speak to, don’t actually want fully remote work (internal and delivery consultants tend to want this). Most want to be trusted and empowered to work from where they work most effectively. Which most of the time is a mix of home and office (2/3 being the most popular split).??

Structured progression - this particular client has a dedicated L&D specialist in house, that they have weekly 1-2-1’s with. They’ve given clear progression goals and helped to achieve those. It really anchors the consultant to the agency.?

Knowledgeable manager - we’re getting this one more and more frequently. “I have a line manager who has incredibly in-depth knowledge of the industry and is more than happy to share it. I’m learning a lot day to day, which I really enjoy. I also have a lot of autonomy, which is something I value in any role.”. Without stating the obvious here, having good managers can make or break a strong retention rate.?

And now some quantitative data:

Mean average comms rate from the past 6 months; 13%

Average tenure in previous role when moving: 13.1 months

Average billing for someone with over 2 years experience: ￡138,000?

As mentioned, the market for us has really picked up and accelerated, so here are a selection of some of our most beautiful and recent roles. Head to our Job listings page for the rest of them!

Latest jobs (to view the full video description/advert and to apply click on the gif):

Danny B:

Josh W:

Will G:

Rich Lambert:

Posts of the fortnight:

We recruit people. It's a weird one:

Magic from Sam Wilson at the recruitment agency expo (INCREDIBLE!!):

Pyramid schemes with Adam Woollard :

You will probably notice that we suffer from a chronic lack of diversity in our team. We're aware of it and something we're proactively trying to address. If you are looking for a new role as a recruitment consultant, can get to Brackley a couple of times a week and you're a decent person then give Will a shout!